The Staircase

by Ann Rinaldi

  "I'm doing it for Mrs. Lacey, not for me. I don't need to believe in anything."

  "No. I'm sure you don't. That's one way of never being disappointed."

  "I've had my disappointments," I told her. And my voice quavered saying it.

  "Of course you have. So you're safe now. If Saint Joseph doesn't come, you won't be disappointed. No loss of faith for you. Nothing to worry about."

  "Do you think he'll come if the Bishop accepts that petition and makes the carpenter stop working?"

  "He has already accepted it."

  "What?" I felt as if she'd thrown cold water in my face. "Elinora's petition? After what I had to tell him about the cat?"

  "Don't be disappointed in him, Lizzy. He can't have girls fasting and fainting away in class. And for some of these day boarders, the food they eat here is the only decent meal they get all day long. He knows that. Just as he knows that he can't always do what he wants to do. And sometimes must do what he doesn't want to do. It's part of being a bishop."

  I studied on her words and nodded.

  Then, of a sudden, a smile broke out on her face, a beatific smile, nothing less. "So, you told the Bishop about the cat, then. And that's why Elinora was given a switching."

  "Elinora was switched?" I forgot, in an instant, about the petition. "By Mother Magdalena? For blinding my cat?" I couldn't believe it. "But the Bishop told me he didn't believe in corporal punishment. Why did he let Mother Magdalena switch her?"

  "He doesn't. But in this case, I hear, he said that going against his principles was the least he could do when the poor cat was left physically harmed. Nothing riles him more than people mistreating animals. He once knocked a man off his feet on the streets of town for beating his donkey. Only Mother Magdalena didn't switch Elinora."

  "You, then?" I gaped at her, at once delighted and shamed for that delight. And frightened now of facing Elinora.

  "No," she said. "The Bishop isn't a man to let anyone do his dirty work for him. If there's an unpleasant chore, he'll do it himself. Just like he himself told the carpenter to stop work for a week hence."

  "Oh." It took me a moment to take in all she was saying. The Bishop switching Elinora. Then accepting her petition. And what it meant. "Then José will leave. And there will be no staircase."

  "Be careful there, Lizzy Enders. You sound disappointed. It almost made me think, there for a minute, that you believed in that carpenter."

  "He was doing beautiful work. I know he could have finished it for Christmas. It would have made Mrs. Lacey so happy to know he was working on it. And now he's stopped and she..." My voice failed me. Despair surged through me. "I wanted that staircase, and I wanted that carpenter to finish it. For Mrs. Lacey!"

  "I know, Lizzy." Sister Roberta's voice was tender.

  I didn't want tender, however. I could not abide it. I was more accustomed to dealing with adversaries. "Don't be nice to me." I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

  "Oh? And why?"

  "Because everybody who's nice to me either dies or leaves. I'd rather we be at cross-purposes."

  "I understand," she said quietly. "But I promise, I'm not dying or leaving. So you can believe in me all you want. And if you do, will you listen to a suggestion I have that might get the carpenter to stay?"

  I didn't say yes. I didn't say anything. I just looked at her. That in itself gave her permission to continue.

  "I've gotten to know him quite well in the time he worked in the kitchen. He told me he came here because you invited him. He came for you. I think he would stay for you, if you asked him."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "He told me how you two had discussed things." The way she said the word things put special meaning on it. I knew immediately what she meant.

  "He told me how he hoped he'd influenced you for the best. He's a lonely man, without a family. He had to leave his own family to fend for themselves, he said. I think he would feel as if he made up for some of that if he knew he'd convinced you to write to your father."

  I knew she would come around to that sooner or later.

  "As a matter of fact, I think if you did write to your father, José would be so happy, he'd stay. Then, if Saint Joseph doesn't come to our aid, why, we'll have José to make the staircase."

  "You have no right to ask me that," I said.

  "I know, Lizzy."

  "I thought you believed in Saint Joseph."

  "Oh, I do."

  "That makes no sense."

  "When you're talking miracles, not much does," she said. "Now take your asafetida and do what you have to do."

  I wasn't sure I wanted to do it anymore. But after all, a promise is a promise.

  19

  Dear Daddy:

  How can I call him "dear"? He left me, abandoned me, just when I needed him most. I do not mean the term, but then neither do I mean the letter. I am doing it only to show the carpenter, to make him happy, so maybe he will stay.

  I am sending this to the Santa Gertrudis Ranch, as you suggested. I suppose you are there by now. I hope they have given you a job.

  I'll wager he hates working for someone else again. I remember how he'd hated being a storekeeper for Uncle William. It must be difficult looking around the biggest ranch in the Southwest and remembering his own plantation. But I can't say that to him, no.

  I suppose I am doing fine here if you consider my grades. I am not a number-one student, but I am acquitting myself proudly. That is what Mother Magdalena says, when she isn't scolding me for one thing or another. It is very difficult, of course, being among all these Catholic girls. I am the only Methodist. I must go to their church services and suffer their prayers and incense and constant murmurings. For all that, the girls who are my classmates are no better in deportment than were my classmates back in Independence. Maybe they are worse.

  I have no friend among them. Strangely, my friends are some adults.

  I wonder what his duties are at the ranch. When he sees drovers roping cows, does he envy their abilities? Is he still refusing to fire a gun? Are any of them veterans of the war, from either side? If they are Union veterans, will they take orders from him?

  I know you were not happy in Independence, Daddy, so I hope this is a new beginning for you. What are your quarters like? Are they commodious? Or mean? I am still rooming with Elinora, but she has turned out to be even more of a plague than she was on the trip. I have written to Uncle William, asking him if I can come back to Independence. After all I have been through here, which I have not yet had time to disclose to you, I am sure I could go back to school and keep house for him there, too.

  I know you asked me to come and live with you. But you said "after your education." What does that mean? How long do you think I will be able to stay here? If you really want me to come, Daddy, you have to be plain about asking. I could bring Ben. I'm sure he'd be right at home on a ranch. But that would depend on whether you really want us, Daddy, and are not saying it just to appear nice. I have a kitten now, too, though she's blind. And I'm sure that next summer you'd let me invite Cassie. But you must not shilly-shally about it, because I will go, first, to Uncle William, if you can't make up your mind. You must say you really want me, Daddy, for me to even consider it.

  At any rate, Daddy, I am well. I hope you are there at the ranch and not on a cattle drive to the eastern markets, although I understand you could earn a lot of money that way.

  Of course, he doesn't want me. He'll be off on cattle drives all the time. Didn't he say a drover could earn over five thousand dollars a year? Why would he want me around, anyway?

  I must go now. I hope this gets to you soon. I hope your new position there is going well.

  Until I started writing this, I didn't really know how I felt, but oh, I hope you want me!

  Your affectionate daughter,

  Lizzy

  I don't have to mean it. Do I?

  20

  I WROTE THE LETTER with Cleo in my lap, mewing and burrowing close to me. Whe
n I finished, I folded the parchment carefully, put Cleo in my apron pocket, and went to Mrs. Lacey's room. She was sleeping peacefully.

  I tied the bag of asafetida around her neck.

  Next I stopped in the kitchen, where they had set up Elena's cradle so that she was always in front of someone's eyes. She was sleeping. She looked like a baby doll, lying there in her linen gown and little bonnet. I felt a surge of love for her, for her helplessness. The other girls hadn't paid her any mind, busy as they were with their own personal concerns. But I often picked her up. Tomorrow, Ramona said, I might help bathe her.

  I had always wanted a little sister. All of my classmates in Independence had sisters and brothers. I had none. And being an only child was smothering. I had often felt that everything I did either made my parents' happiness or broke it forever.

  I leaned over the cradle and kissed Elena, then I went to the barn to seek out José.

  ***

  I CAME UPON HIM mending his sandals. He sat on a bale of hay. He looked up and smiled at me. "How are you faring?" he asked.

  "I was hoping to convince you to stay," I said.

  He sighed and gestured that I should sit. "I am not wanted. Knowledge of that is worse even than accepting charity."

  "I want you to stay. As for charity, you don't have to take all the money for the staircase, then. You can take some off for this week of food and lodging."

  "If only all accounts could be settled so easily," he said.

  "Will you stay, then?"

  He looked at me. "There is a lot of bad feeling in this place. It is like an undercurrent in the sea. It pulls one under."

  "I know." I fished the letter to my father out of my apron pocket. "Here. I've written this to my father. I want you to read it."

  He read the letter, taking his time about it, stroking his beard, nodding. And while he read it I looked about the barn and thought how unlikely all this was. Three months ago I'd been in Independence with my mother and father, with a trip to Santa Fe only talk around the table. Now I sat in a barn in Santa Fe, awaiting approval from a carpenter—a stranger—about a letter to my father, who was in the land called Texas, having left me. I was surrounded by Catholics. My mother was dead. I'd just tied a bag of stinking asafetida around the neck of a comatose woman so she could go to her Methodist heaven. In my pocket was a blind kitten, rendered so by girls who were waiting for a visit from a saint.

  "It is a good letter," he said.

  "Thank you."

  "It bodes good feeling."

  Just then Cleo meowed and stuck her head out of my pocket. José looked startled at first, then smiled and cupped his hands. I put her into them. "She's blind," I said.

  "Born that way?"

  "No." Hesitantly I told him what had happened.

  His eyes took on depths that seemed to hold all the sadness in the world, not only for the cruelty that had been done to Cleo but to all, man and beast. He stroked Cleo gently. "I thought this was a holy place," he said.

  "It is, oh, it is!" I said in a rush of need to suddenly defend the school and convent. "The nuns have taken in Elena, the baby. And they will raise her. The Bishop is such a good man! In all my life I have known no better."

  He nodded, holding the kitten up in his hands before his face. He gazed at her, and Cleo, poor little thing, did her best to gaze back.

  "Sister Roberta said she might see again someday. What do you think?"

  "She might," he said, handing Cleo back to me. "You must love her and care for her well."

  "Oh, I will," I promised.

  "Now what will you do if your father asks you to come and live with him?" he asked me, picking up a sandal again to work on it.

  "Likely I'll go," I said.

  "You will?"

  "Yes. I'll take Cleo and Ben and ... and—" I looked around me in the barn, wanting to include more, wanting to say more, wanting to let him know that we weren't all what he thought around here. Oh, some were. And I was. For I was lying to his face.

  "I'll take Elena. Yes, I've been thinking on it. I'll ask Mother Magdalena if I can take baby Elena and give her a home."

  He smiled. "You would do all that for me, Lizzy? Just to get me to wait around a week and take food and lodging for nothing?"

  I cuddled Cleo close to me. "I always wanted a little sister," I said. But I could not look him full in the face.

  "Then I will stay, Lizzy. I will stay the week."

  I gasped. "You will?"

  "Yes. But you must not feel that you must give the baby a home just for me. That would be something that the heart should be sure of."

  "I'm sure." I stood up, clutching Cleo. I felt strange of a sudden. The idea of going to live with my father in Texas and taking Elena had never been in my mind until this moment, until I'd sat down in the carpenter's presence. And now I felt the idea growing inside me, falling into place and beating with regularity. Like a new heart.

  "You should have boots," I told José, "like all the other men around here have. Not sandals."

  "They have always served my needs," he said.

  "You will tell the Bishop, then, that you are staying? Even though you can't go about hammering this week?"

  "I will tell him," he promised.

  I started to move away, then stopped. "May I ask you something?"

  "Of course."

  "I know you aren't a religious man. I mean, I never see you praying in the church."

  "There are other places to pray," he said. "And even other ways to worship."

  "Yes, well, the nuns baptized Mrs. Lacey Catholic before she went into her coma. And she didn't want to be baptized Catholic. She's Methodist, only had no paper to prove her baptism. She knew they would do this and asked me if I would put a bag of asafetida around her neck if they did. Does asafetida void baptism?"

  "I have never heard such," he said.

  "Then the Catholic baptism will stand?"

  "I would think so, yes."

  "But what if she is already baptized Methodist? How will God take her? As Methodist or Catholic?"

  He paused for a moment in his sewing of the sandal and gazed to a middle distance somewhere behind me. "I think it doesn't matter to God," he said finally. "I think He loves us all the same, Lizzy."

  "Would He not take her to heaven because she wanted to void the Catholic baptism?"

  He recommenced his sewing. "He is not a punishing God, Lizzy. That is the mistake most people make, thinking He sits with an account book and a big fist, waiting to punish us. He is not a wrathful God but a loving God who made each of us and loved us since we were in our mother's womb. This is only the opinion of a poor, badly educated man, of course, but I think He wants us to enjoy the world as He has given it to us. Else why would He have given us so many beautiful things? Like your kitten, for instance? Or baby Elena?"

  Cleo was purring in my arms. I nodded, thanking him. Around me in the barn the animals chomped on their food and a kind of peace descended upon me that made me know everything was going to be all right.

  "If Saint Joseph doesn't come, you will finish the staircase for Christmas, won't you?" I asked.

  "I will, Lizzy. If Saint Joseph doesn't come."

  "They think he's coming," I confided. "Did you ever hear anything so silly?"

  He shook his head no and smiled and went right on sewing his sandal.

  ELINORA DID NOT COME to our room that night. She spent the night in the penance chamber. I supposed that she would hate me now more than ever. Strange though it was, I had to keep looking at Cleo and reminding myself of what she had done, to be pleased.

  21

  SAINT JOSEPH DIDN'T COME.

  Elinora came back to our room, chastened. "I spent the night with Winona and Lucy," she said. "We had sort of a party to celebrate the success of our petition. I'm so glad my uncle saw the light and agreed to stop the carpenter."

  She acted no differently toward me than before. To do so would be to admit she'd been punished. And I didn't fl
aunt what I knew.

  Every morning that following week, she and her lieutenants would rush to the chapel early, before mass, to see if the wondrous staircase had been built. And if the saint had come during the night.

  Then there would be long faces and doleful looks at breakfast. Which they dutifully ate because the Bishop had agreed to their demands.

  All that stood there in the space where the staircase should be was the affair that José had started. His tubs of water and his wood were gone. So was José.

  He was nowhere to be seen. Not on the grounds or in the barn. Even his mule was gone. At first I became frightened, thinking he had left for good. Then on Wednesday of that week, Sister Roberta pulled me aside and told me he was at the Bishop's farm.

  I had plenty to distract me from both the staircase and José by then.

  On Friday night Mrs. Lacey took a turn for the worse, with a high fever and chills. A doctor was sent for.

  "What is this bag doing around her neck?" he asked Sister Roberta.

  "It is there to prevent the croup," she said.

  "Take it off. You don't have to worry about croup. She won't live until Sunday."

  He had the face of a bald chicken. His eyes were so cold with contempt that I felt a draft in the room. And I wondered why they called Jesse James a criminal.

  Sister Roberta took the asafetida bag off Mrs. Lacey to please him, then without a word to anyone, put it back on after he left.

  "Maybe you shouldn't," I offered. And I told her about the discussion I'd had with the Bishop.

  "You hold to your promise," she said. "If the Bishop asks, I'll tell him how she was coughing before she went into a coma."

  I loved her even more then. And offered to watch baby Elena after my last class today, to give Sister Roberta some free time. The days still held some warmth in early December, though the nights were frigid. I took Elena, all bundled up in her cradle, out to the garden and sat with her under the arbor.